How to Get Maximum FPS from the Optimization Modpack

Tune the bundled mods, not the game

Because this pack swaps out vanilla's renderer for Sodium and its lighting engine for Starlight, most of your FPS gains come from settings inside the mod's own video options rather than the vanilla menu. Open Video Settings and look for the Sodium-style pages: Render Distance, Simulation Distance, Graphics, Smooth Lighting, and Clouds all live there now.

Practical order of operations

1. Lower Simulation Distance before Render Distance. Simulation Distance controls how far entities and block ticks run, and it is usually the bigger CPU cost. Cutting it by a few chunks often gives a larger, smoother gain than touching Render Distance.

2. Set Graphics to Fast and turn Clouds off or to Fast. These are cheap wins with almost no visual penalty.

3. Keep Smooth Lighting on — Starlight handles lighting efficiently, so you rarely need to disable it for performance.

4. If you use shaders or resource packs, test them one at a time. The pack does not change gameplay, so any stutter you see afterward is almost always the add-on, not the optimization mods.

Check the real bottleneck

If FPS is still low, watch whether the game is CPU- or GPU-bound. Turn Render Distance way down: if FPS barely moves, your CPU (entities, chunk loading) is the limit, so reduce Simulation Distance and mob-heavy farms. If FPS jumps, your GPU is the limit, so reduce Render Distance and disable clouds.